


Survivor

by navaan



Series: After the Games [2]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Introspection, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta has to sort out his feeling for Katniss after surviving the Hunger Games and deal with his survivor's guilt. Introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survivor

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fandom-stocking of storydivagirl.
> 
> Thank you to my beta rosehiptea!

On the first day that he was finally left alone at his new home - the house of a true Hunger Games Champion - he discovered something important about himself: He _hated_ being alone. In the midst of the Hunger Games and the surrounding media frenzy he had wished for nothing more than to be left alone. But now that he was truly by himself for the first since, not followed by cameras, not under scrutiny, he felt lost.

Although he had been stupid and had forgotten that _everything_ was a lie. At least here had always been a script to follow until now. And in allowing himself to reveal his love for Katniss, he had set most of the parameters for how the script would work and Katniss had only followed his lead.

But what exactly was he supposed to do with himself now that he was free again? What was a victor to do without a script?

One thing was for sure though? Peeta didn’t feel like he was a victor. He didn’t feel like a _winner_ in any sense of the word. How could _surviving_ the Games make you anything but a murderer?

No. Peeta hadn’t won anything. Instead he’d lost everything.

At least before he had been chosen as tribute, he’d had hope. Not that he really thought he’d have ever mustered up the courage to tell Katniss he liked her, or better that he’d liked her _forever_ when she didn’t even know who he was. If he ever had done that back then, she would have thought he was going crazy and would have avoided him.

Like she was doing now.

They hadn’t really seen each other since the media had left their District.

It was actually quite an achievement. They were neighbors now in their own little part of the District, a neighborhood they only shared with Haymitch, and he was seeing less of Katniss than ever before. At least when she hadn’t known him, she hadn’t known to avoid him either. He couldn’t feel mad at her, though. But after all that had happened he couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

Even Haymitch, who had spent most of his life drunk to the point of oblivion, had commented on that when Peeta had been over to look after him this morning.

_”It’s not over for you two. Not for Katniss - and not for you. She has enemies in high places now. And make no mistake: you only lived because of her ploy with the berries and your popularity with the audience. You want both of you to go on living? Find a way to _understand_ what she did in the arena. She didn't lie to you. She was playing a game for both your lives.”_

Peeta couldn’t find fault with that logic.

But the connection he’d felt with her in the arena had been built on his own assumptions and hopes. How could he not have believed her act of falling in love with him, when it had been all he had ever wanted? Dreamed of? Never hoping it could ever come true, of course. Would he ever talk to her again, now that they had survived together? Would he even be talking to her today if they hadn’t been sent away to die together?

It wasn’t likely. Katniss had always a loner, focused on what was important to her. Her family's survival had been the most important thing. What were people like him to her? Living a better and easier live in a District full of starving people? Would she have ever noticed him?

But she had remembered the bread... Because it had ensured the survival of her family and herself.

He stared at his hands, hands that had formed bread and decorated cakes, but now were stained with the blood of the dead Tributes. Even those that hadn’t died through him, were dead _because_ of him. He lived because they were dead, and he supposed he had been destined to be killed by the girl he loved to give the Capitol an even better tragedy. Maybe the public would have hated Katniss for killing her star-crossed lover? Maybe that had been what the Game keepers had been planning all along?

The thought made him angry. What right had these people to mess up his life like that? To make him an actor in their tragedy? What right did they have to make him lose even now that he had survived?

It was time to meet this head on.

He wasn’t the same naive, smitten boy that had left the District to die. Surviving, he found, changed who you were. Katniss had been a survivor even before she'd won the games. Was this change something she had gone through before, when her father died and her family was starving?

Surviving also made you find hidden strengths inside yourself.

 _You want both of you to go on living? Find a way to understand what she did in the arena.”_ Haymitch words came back to him again. And he found that he _did_ understand what Katniss had done. She’d played the cards she’d been dealt to survive. A true tactician, understanding Haymitch's hidden messages, and playing along to better both their chances of survival.

Katniss hadn’t deceived him. She’d deceived the audience. She’d played the game, deceiving even the people, who had set up the games to see kids like the two of them die before their life had even started. She’d survived and pulled him along.

But without him her chances wouldn’t have been good.

They had survived together. Truly together. And he couldn’t resent her for that.

He still didn’t feel like a winner. But now he knew what it meant to be a survivor, and maybe that brought him one step closer to really understanding Katniss better.

He left the house to make his way down to the bakery. Living alone in this big, new house was still feeling strange to him, and he went to help his parents and brothers everyday to have a reason to not be alone. On his way he passed the house Katniss now shared with her mother and sister. At this time of day she was probably out hunting, visiting Gale’s family or just hiding from the world. But when he got closer he found Prim and her mother working in the small garden.

“Good morning, Peeta,” Prim called softly over the fence.

He smiled back, nodding. “Good morning.”

Mrs. Everdeen didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with her clear, friendly eyes and nodded. There was a world of respect and gratitude in it and Peeta felt his own spirits were lifted.

He wasn’t just a survivor. He was part of Katniss' survival, too. And when he had decided to reveal his secret to Haymitch in preparations of their strategy, that had been the thing he had wanted: to ensure that Katniss had a fighting chance. So he had won the game in more than one way. He _was_ a Victor after all.

Whatever happened now, at least he’d always play the game for survival by her side.


End file.
